This invention pertains to electrical connectors having resilient compression contacts.
The classical electrical connector has employed a male and female contact pair for each circuit conductor that is to be connected.
A disadvantage of this type of connector is the magnitude of the connecting and disconnecting force required when the connector includes a number of contact pairs. Maintenance groups in certain industries, such as the aircraft industry, find this a serious disadvantage, and one which often results in the connector becoming faulty in both contact resistance and the integrity of the over-all connector structure as well.
In a related art having to do with establishing connections to printed circuit boards in electronic apparatus, a coiled spring is used to urge a contact ball above the surface of an insulating board so that the ball contacts a printed circuit on another board that is essentially coplanar with the insulating board. The spring does not float between the contacts sought to be made.
Also in that art, contacts are made to spaced but parallel-planar printed circuit boards by the sides of coiled springs. The springs are encapsulated in an at least partially resilient plastic, save for approximately a quarter circumference on opposite sides of the spring. Although otherwise embedded in the plastic these segments of each convolution of the spring remain free. When two printed circuit boards are pressed against the opposite sides of the spring, contact is made from one board to the other through the convolutions of the spring.
The ends of the spring are not used for contacting.
In the electrical computer art, simple cantilever springs project from an insulative board and pass through the known punched apertures in a punched card at the locations where the apertures are aligned with the springs. Electrical contact is then made with a conductive plate that is coplanar with the opposite side of the punched card.
Elsewhere in that art, a similar folded-over cantilever contact having an external soldering tang is held to bear upon the conductors of a printed circuit; thereby to provide external contacts for the same.